Harder to get a good deal than it is used to!

Car in case; Civic DX 2012 no option in Canada for one of my children. 14990$MSRP + 1495$T&P

In the 12 new cars or so I purchased, 5-7% on MSRP was easy. The cheapest was 9560$ and the transaction was 9000$.

For this new Civic I offered 5% off( 14240$ + 1495$) to 2 dealers. Not interested. One sales director said me that at the start (full MRSP), the garage only grosses 300$. He also told me that the holdback is only 80$ (I read 2% elsewhere).

The US cost/price according to Edmunds is 14846$ / 15955$... so the gross starts at 7%.

T&P is excessive in Canada. In US, it is 790$. 1495$ here and it is made in Ontario.

Car in case; Civic DX 2012 no option in Canada for one of my children. 14990$MSRP + 1495$T&P

In the 12 new cars or so I purchased, 5-7% on MSRP was easy. The cheapest was 9560$ and the transaction was 9000$.

For this new Civic I offered 5% off( 14240$ + 1495$) to 2 dealers. Not interested. One sales director said me that at the start (full MRSP), the garage only grosses 300$. He also told me that the holdback is only 80$ (I read 2% elsewhere).

The US cost/price according to Edmunds is 14846$ / 15955$... so the gross starts at 7%.

T&P is excessive in Canada. In US, it is 790$. 1495$ here and it is made in Ontario.

Question, does the dealer has also a margin on that 1495$?

I am assuming that T&P is tax & plates? If that is the case, there is no margin. All taxes and charges for plates goes directly to the sate. If the dealer has a documentation fee, then that is 100% profit for the dealership, but once in state, the fee cannot be negotiated or waived.

When I was selling at a VW store that also had a Honda franchise, the lower-end Civics only had about a $300-$500 difference between invoice and MSRP, plus about $400 in holdback. So, offering that kind of discount to the dealers is pretty absurd. (I don't know if the invoice-to-MSRP ratio is different there, however.)

Most cars in the US market had a 3-4% margin, plus holdback, if offered by the manufacturer. I remember that Porsche did not have holdback on all of its models, just a select few. With Audi, dealers only got holdback if they met strict criteria, that included CSI scores for bother sales AND service, plus a minimum objective of units delivered per month. The dealer I worked at did not meet any of those criteria, so we were not given holdback. Blah.

Volkswagen just reduced holdback from 3% to 2% on all vehicles in the US. I left the business just before that happened.

So let me get this straight? Your engine is 1.8-liters, and my pop is 2?

More companies have taken the profit out of the dealer to push volume. Bad business plan in some aspects, but the new view is to keep limited stock and replenish as needed.

In my opinion, be it right or wrong in other's eyes, the good deal is in the eyes of the buyer.
If I buy a car at $20,000 and think I received a great deal, great.
If you buy the same car at the same price and feel like you were ripped off, then you will always look negatively towards it.